Quote:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of roadside bomb attacks by insurgents against U.S. military supply convoys in Iraq has doubled in the past year, the general in charge of logistics for American military forces in Iraq said on Friday.
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Army Brig. Gen. Yves Fontaine, commander of the 1st Corps Support Command, said U.S. military convoys carrying fuel, food, water, arms and equipment face 30 attacks weekly involving so-called improvised explosive devices, or IEDs.
Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon from a U.S. base at Balad north of Baghdad, Fontaine said U.S. casualties from these attacks have actually declined thanks to increased armor on vehicles such as Humvees, tractor trailers and cargo trucks.
"As a matter of fact, we have seen an increase in the use of IEDs on our convoys. And our main threat is the IED for the logistics convoys coming from Kuwait, Jordan and Turkey, and then going to the Baghdad area. So the increase has been to about 30 a week," Fontaine said.
"Because we've up-armored our vehicles, the casualties have decreased significantly, even though the IED attacks have increased significantly. So now our soldiers are safe in their Humvees and their trucks, and they walk out of the incidents when the incident occurs," Fontaine added.
He did not provide casualty numbers.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050812/...NlYwMlJVRPUCUl
While it is certainly good news that soliders are walking away from these incidents unharmed (for the most part), it is still very worrying that instead of the insurgents being strangled into oblivion, they seem to be hitting American targets with increasing frequency.
The insurgency doesn't seem to have and end in sight - they seem to have supplies of bodies, weapons and explosives on tap. Does anyone know anything about the border controls in Iraq? Because they have to be getting them from somewhere.
